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Ignite Bristol: The Sequel

The venue and date for the second helping of Ignite in Bristol has been announced; it is going to be at the Tobacco Factory Theatre on the 15th July. This is quite an upgrade from the original venue – almost doubling the capacity and I guess it will make it easier to sort the filming of the sessions as well. To be honest I don’t go south of the river very often – basically once a year for Upfest! – so you can tell it must be something special if I’m going to make the trip :0)

The organisers have asked for those of us who spoke the first time to share our thoughts on what it was like to speak at the event.

To be honest I found it challenging, exciting and terrifying in equal parts. I’ve spoken to larger groups in the past with no problems but they were standard presentations and I found the Ignite format required some real thought and planning.

I’m very glad I did it and more than likely would do so again but maybe not for a while. I love the idea it is sharing something you are passionate about and actually have a few other presentations drafted for the future.

I did quite a bit of research about how to structure an Ignite talk before I did it and the most useful thing I read was the fact that each slide has time for about 20 or 30 words at a normal speaking speed – I discovered this after my initial draft and it meant cutting my wordcount almost by half – this gave me a little bit of space to take a breath occasionally and to improvise a little. The other thing I did which really helped me was using the record option in Keynote which allowed me to listen back to my rehearsals (I now do this for all my talks).

If you are thinking of speaking I say go for it! If you are thinking of coming along to watch be quick – the tickets are likely to fly out of the door (well out of the Eventbrite app!)